Strange (re/de)tuning in Workbench
by marcusbacus on 2011-06-12 12:03:54

I own a Variax 600 and a POD XT Live for about a year, and I know pretty much how to use both already. I made some custom tuning in Workbench, and it worked fine (a simple half-step detuning to Eb which is quite useful and it's not in the factory presets...). Saved it to some specific body/pickup model which I'd use it a little more, a Lester something (can't remember exactly which one). But I decided to try it with a Strat later, so I just changed stuff to make it a Strat - first the body then the pickup. When I replaced the Gibson pickup with a single coil (bridge position), immediately the tunning changed to something strange, like if the guitar was like a 12-string poorly tuned - not a perfect pitch 12-string though. You can hear the correct note (say the E 6th string) and some other note slightly detuned, not the Eb, something inbetween or even higher than the original string was (I can't detect which note), like if I had switched to any of the 12-string models which obviously I didn't.

It's not the "live" sound of my strings either, as I tried it with the amp quite loud and it's still there (will check with the headphones to get it more detailed). I tried with a different single coil pickup (a Rickenbacker, a Danelectro), and it had the same effect, the guitar sounds with some strange detuned note and not the tuning I made. I tried some other humbuckers and the same thing happened. When I put back the original pickup I had with the saved customized model, the artifact disappears and the guitar is back to the customized tuning with no glitches.

It also happened while creating other new tunings, because I tried to create a detuned Strat from scratch to see if it would fix the problem - when I used a humbucker, it sounded fine (with any body combination), but whenever I added a single coil, it was in the wrong tuning again. It happened not only with the Eb but with a lot of similar attempts like 1 and a half step detuning (like the one used in Nirvana's Heart Shaped Box). It also happened with the bemol and # presets at the top of the fretboard of the Workbench, when I used these the tuning wasn't a half step but it was this messed up version instead.

Until a month ago, everything was fine. I don't remember making any serious updates like firmwares or such.

Re: Strange (re/de)tuning in Workbench
by JellyWheat on 2011-06-12 12:31:20

Sounds to me like some of your flash memory files are corrupted. Have you tried reflashing?

Another possibility is that you are simply pushing the Workbench software beyond its design parameters by radically altering model patches to transform them into a completely different kind of guitar. perhaps you would have better luck building a Stratocaster if you were to base it on an existing "Spank" patch.

[This second possibility is for someone with more programming savvy than me to comment on definitively...]

My $0.02/FWIW

JellyWheat

Re: Strange (re/de)tuning in Workbench
by marcusbacus on 2011-06-12 13:09:54

I've considered a reflashing, but only if it's really necessary as everything else seems to be working as usual.

Maybe just detuning/adjusting an existent Spank model might be better than actually starting from scratch, althought it shouldn't be like that, IMHO. This is how I did the altered Eb Lester anyway. But one shouldn't have such problems when starting from scratch with any model, it's a tuning problem and not actually a modeling problem I suppose... and it happened only with single coils, so there might be something hidden here that I haven't figured.

I think I'm not making anything too weird - it's just a half step detuning!

Re: Strange (re/de)tuning in Workbench
by JellyWheat on 2011-06-12 16:02:35

Yeah, but you may have stumbled across a bug in the Line 6 software. I agree that what you are trying should, theoretically, be possible, but maybe there is a glitch in how the detune algorithm interfaces with the other modules of the macro algorithm you are attempting to create. In any event, if I were you, I would just shake my head at the bug and pursue a less circuitous approach to the model you envision.

But that, sir, is simply one man's opinion...

JellyWheat

Re: Strange (re/de)tuning in Workbench
by marcusbacus on 2011-06-12 21:01:11

Yes there seem to be a certain order or at least some do's and dont's with this thing, and as the manual of the Workbench (which manual? ) doesn't explain in much details how it works...

I tried some stuff tonight and some worked, some didn't. Sometimes when I was coming from a certain guitar setting to another, these odd notes appeared again, even in a totally new bundle that i downloaded from here i think (which gave me some great new ideas for new *useful* settings, btw). There was this 12-string accoustic and the next switch was something with a capo somewhere and this one sounded really strange and with these artifacts - at first - but when i moved it back to that setting again, it was ok... definitely seems to be a bug or some misbehaviour as my workbench was also refusing to recognize my guitar and xt a couple times... I had to turn off the xt and it worked.

Another detail I noticed is that these unwanted notes have sometimes a very short delay, like the tracking issues in these weird synth effects, and like in these effects, a change in the pickup (position mostly) makes the delay disappear.

Re: Strange (re/de)tuning in Workbench
by JellyWheat on 2011-06-13 02:30:18

Why are you reluctant to reflash, if I may ask?

J/W

Re: Strange (re/de)tuning in Workbench
by marcusbacus on 2011-06-13 08:06:19

First I have to save all my stuff, which I did already, and second I heard so many stories of dead guitars after a reflash...

Re: Strange (re/de)tuning in Workbench
by JellyWheat on 2011-06-13 08:27:37

You shouldn't have any trouble as long as there are no power interruptions during the reflash. Make sure you take out your batteries and use the XPS Mini...

As far as saving your work... you should be doing that, anyway!

Good luck.

J/W

The information above may not be current, and you should direct questions to the current forum or review the manual.